REGION: Voting by mail jumps, altering campaigns

More Californians are bypassing the polling place in favor of voting by mail, changing campaign dynamics but helping to identify the winners and losers early in the night in the first count of ballots.

The growth of what is known as "convenience voters" was evident in the June 5 primary, when a whopping 65 percent of Golden State residents made their choices via mail ballot.

San Diego County mirrored the statewide trend, also coming in at 65 percent. In adjoining Riverside County, more than 70 percent of voters chose the mail method.

Voting by mail greatly increases the number of early voters, requiring campaigns to make sure they reach those people weeks before the official Election Day.

"No longer can campaigns count on a last-minute surge through some kind of story or advertising or revelation that could change the election in the last few days," said Jack Pitney, a widely respected political scientist at Claremont-McKenna College near Los Angeles.

"The days of dragging people to the polls on Election Day or arranging for rides are fading," he said. "Campaigns now have to contact people to make sure they have received their mail ballots and sent them in."

This year's general election is on Nov. 6, but mail ballots ----- expected to number more than 715,000 in San Diego County ---- go out on Oct. 8.

California law allows early voting starting 29 days before Election Day. That means the mail ballots can be filled out in less than 10 weeks.

It also means campaigns need to target those voters soon.

"It has to be earlier, because you have to get your message to people before they can vote," Pitney said. "California mailboxes are going to be pretty well stuffed by the end of September."

San Diego political consultant John Dadian said the effects of early voting are widespread.

"The numbers are increasing every year and campaigns have to pay attention to it. You used to have to design campaign budgets accounting for how much you want to spend on signs and things like that, but now it's critical to budget for how much you need to put into direct mail to reach all the early voters."

The vote-by-mail numbers have unquestionably mushroomed. It was 25 percent of state voters in 2000, growing to 33 percent in 2005 and 42 percent in 2008.

San Diego County Registrar of Voters Deborah Seiler said early voting helps the people responsible for coordinating elections and tabulating the results. The bulk of those ballots are in hand before Election Day, allowing them to be tabulated and the results released within minutes of the poll's closing on Election Night.

"The benefit is that you've got a really sizable percentage of the vote in, and we are able to get those results out right away in the first count," she said.

Over the past few years, that has meant the first returns published by the registrar usually tell who all the winners and losers are, because the percentages don't change much when the ballots from polling places are counted.

Dadian said that despite the opportunity to vote early, he encourages people to wait until as close to Election Day as possible.

"Why vote early when things might change late in the race?" he said.

Despite the benefits of mail voting, which simply requires pulling the ballot from the mailbox, filling it out and sending it back, the trend does not appear to have much influence on overall turnout.

In June, turnout was a dismal 26 percent of eligible voters in San Diego County and an even worse 18 percent in Riverside County, according to figures compiled by the California Secretary of State's office.

"It make you wonder that if we didn't have convenience voting, would the turnout have been even lower?" Pitney said.